Opinion
E065778
03-24-2017
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LUIS FERNANDO CONTRERAS, Defendant and Appellant.
Law Offices of Robert Little, and Robert Little for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Eric A. Swenson and Junichi P. Semitsu, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super.Ct.No. FVA1400836) OPINION APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Mary E. Fuller and Stephan G. Saleson, Judges. Affirmed. Law Offices of Robert Little, and Robert Little for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Eric A. Swenson and Junichi P. Semitsu, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
I
INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to a plea agreement, in July 2014, defendant and appellant Luis Fernando Contreras pleaded no contest to selling, transporting, or offering to sell cocaine in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11352. In return, defendant was placed on formal probation for a period of 36 months on various terms and conditions, including serving 120 days in county jail on weekends. Approximately 18 months later, in January 2016, defendant filed a motion for early termination of probation and dismissal of his conviction pursuant to Penal Code sections 1203.3 and 1203.4. The People opposed the motion, noting that the trial court lacked discretion and that termination of defendant's probation after he had only served half of the 36 months would be a serious deviation from the terms of the plea agreement. Following a hearing in March 2016, the trial court agreed with the People and denied defendant's motion, finding the court did not have jurisdiction to terminate probation early because there was a plea agreement to a specific term unless the People agree to early termination. Defendant appeals from the trial court's denial of his motion.
All future statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise stated.
The trial court specifically stated: "[T]here is a plea agreement in this matter that specifically indicates that probation was to be three years. [¶] When there is a plea agreement to a specific term, the Court doesn't have jurisdiction to terminate it early, unless the People are agreeable to it. It doesn't appear that they are. . . ."
Defendant's sole contention on appeal is that the trial court erred in finding it lacked jurisdiction to grant early termination of probation. Although a trial court has the authority and discretion to consider a defendant's motion for early termination from probation pursuant to section 1203.3, subdivision (a), the trial court lacked such discretion under the circumstances of this case. We affirm.
II
DISCUSSION
Because the factual background is not relevant to the limited issue on appeal, we will not recount those facts. --------
As the parties agree, a trial court has the authority and discretion to modify a probation term during the probationary period, including the power to terminate probation early. (See, e.g., § 1203.3, subd. (a) ["The court may at any time when the ends of justice will be subserved thereby, and when the good conduct and reform of the person so held on probation shall warrant it, terminate the period of probation, and discharge the person so held."].) Furthermore, as our Supreme Court has noted, the probationary statutes "are intended to afford the defendant an opportunity to demonstrate his or her rehabilitation in order to obtain early termination of probation, reclassification of the offense, or dismissal of the action, and—in certain cases—all such forms of leniency." (People v. Feyrer (2010) 48 Cal.4th 426, 440 (Feyrer), superseded by statute on another ground as stated in People v. Park (2013) 56 Cal.4th 782, 789, fn. 4.)
However, while a trial court is vested with authority to modify probation, section 1192.5 as well as case law clearly provide that the court has limited power to modify the terms of a previously approved plea. (§ 1192.5; People v. Segura (2008) 44 Cal.4th 921, 930-931 (Segura).) Section 1192.5 specifically provides that "[w]here the plea is accepted by the prosecuting attorney in open court and is approved by the court, . . . the court may not proceed as to the plea other than as specified in the plea." (§ 1192.5, italics added.) "A plea agreement 'is a tripartite agreement which requires the consent of the defendant, the People and the court.' " (Feyrer, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 436.) "Acceptance of the agreement binds the court and the parties to the agreement." (Segura, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 930.) "Thereafter, material terms of the agreement cannot be modified without the parties' consent." (People v. Martin (2010) 51 Cal.4th 75, 80, citing Segura, supra, at p. 935.)
In Segura, supra, 44 Cal.4th at page 935, footnote 11, our Supreme Court determined that a "probationary jail term" of 365 days in county jail was a material term of a negotiated plea agreement. There, pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, the defendant pled no contest to one count of inflicting corporal injury upon a spouse. "The prosecutor agreed that the prior conviction allegation would be dismissed, that defendant's present conviction would not be utilized as a 'strike' conviction in a future case, and that defendant would be placed on five years' probation, subject to the condition he serve the first 365 days in county jail." (Id. at p. 926.) Thereafter, the defendant moved to shorten the jail term to 360 days. The trial court denied the motion, finding that the 365-day sentence was an integral part of the plea agreement and thus not subject to subsequent modification by the court. (Id. at pp. 927-928.) Our Supreme Court agreed. It concluded that "following entry of the judgment, the trial court retained its authority pursuant to section 1203.3 to revoke, modify, or change probation or modify conditions that were not made a part of the parties' plea agreement. Nonetheless, as the trial court recognized, it was not at liberty to modify a condition integral to the granting of probation in the first place—a negotiated condition included within the plea agreement entered into by the parties, accepted by the court, and incorporated into the judgment." (Id. at p. 936.)
Our Supreme Court explained that "when, as in the present case, the parties negotiate a plea agreement that, among other express provisions, grants probation incorporating and conditioned upon the service of a specified jail term, the resulting term of incarceration is not—and may not be treated as—a mere standard condition of probation. Rather, the term of incarceration is in the nature of a condition precedent to, and constitutes a material term of, the parties' agreement. As such, the jail term is not subject to subsequent modification without the consent of both parties, and cannot be altered solely on the basis of the trial court's general statutory authority to modify probation during the probationary period. It follows that in the present case, the trial court correctly determined that under the circumstances it lacked authority to grant defendant's request to modify his probationary jail term, and the appellate court erred in concluding otherwise." (Segura, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 935, fn. omitted.) The court declined to "determine as a general matter what constitutes a material term of a plea agreement, because the one-year term . . . clearly was a material term." (Ibid., fn. 10.)
Here, the three-year probationary term was integral to the granting of probation and thus, not subject to the trial court's authority pursuant to section 1203.3 to revoke, modify or change probationary conditions. In determining whether the three-year probationary term is a material term of the plea agreement, we note that a negotiated plea agreement is interpreted according to general contract principles. (Segura, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 930.) " 'The fundamental goal of contractual interpretation is to give effect to the mutual intention of the parties. (Civ. Code, § 1636.) . . .' [Citation.] 'The mutual intention to which the courts give effect is determined by objective manifestations of the parties' intent, including the words used in the agreement, as well as extrinsic evidence of such objective matters as the surrounding circumstances under which the parties negotiated or entered into the contract; the object, nature and subject matter of the contract; and the subsequent conduct of the parties. [Citations.]' " (People v. Shelton (2006) 37 Cal.4th 759, 767.)
In the present matter, defendant pleaded no contest to one count of selling, transporting, or offering to sell cocaine and the prosecutor agreed, in part, that defendant would be placed on formal probation for three years, subject to serving 120 days in county jail on weekends. On this record, it is clear the parties intended that defendant would be on formal probation for a period of 36 months or three years. There is no indication that the parties intended defendant to be able to seek—and the court to be able to grant—early termination of probation after a particular number of months. Additionally, nothing in the plea agreement or the record suggests that defendant's three-year probationary period was intended to be a "lid" or a maximum term that could be subsequently reduced for good behavior. A contrary interpretation of the plea agreement would run afoul of the general rule that plea agreements incorporate existing law. (Doe v. Harris (2013) 57 Cal.4th 64, 66.)
Defendant's three-year probation term was a material aspect of his plea. Its duration was determined in the context of a five-year prison sentence that defendant avoided because of the plea. Like the length of incarceration in Segura, defendant's probationary term was thus an integral condition of a plea negotiated by the prosecution and the defense. Moreover, by requesting to be relieved of about half of the remaining months of his contractually negotiated 36-month period, defendant was asking the trial court to unilaterally shorten his probation by a substantial amount. Accordingly, as our Supreme Court in Segura concluded the trial court in that case lacked authority to shorten a jail term by five days, the trial court here could not shorten defendant's probationary period by about 18 months.
Defendant's reliance on Feyrer, supra, 48 Cal.4th 426 is misplaced. Our Supreme Court in Feyrer determined whether "the effect, if any, of the plea agreement upon the applicability . . . of the statutory provision authorizing a trial court, when probation originally was granted by suspending imposition of sentence, to subsequently declare a wobbler offense to be a misdemeanor." (Id. at p. 431.) The court concluded a trial court that previously approved a plea agreement had authority to declare a wobbler offense to be a misdemeanor since there was "no clear indication . . . that the parties also intended to provide that the felony could not be reduced to a misdemeanor under any circumstances, regardless of [the] defendant's conduct during the period of probation." (Id. at p. 437.) In contrast, the exact length of defendant's probationary period was explicitly addressed by the agreement here. There was no uncertainty regarding defendant's three-year probation term. That the defendant in Feyrer happened to have his probation terminated early is of no consequence since the early termination there was initiated "at the request of the probation department" (id. at p. 432) and, thus, the parties in that case did "not dispute that . . . the trial court properly exercised its authority to terminate defendant's probation early." (Id. at p. 436.) In contrast to Feyrer, the People here never consented to early termination of probation and the probation term of three years was an explicit integral part of the plea agreement between the parties.
Defendant's reliance on our Supreme Court's recent decision in Harris v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 984 is also misplaced. In Harris, the Supreme Court decided whether allowing a party to rescind a plea agreement when a subsequent change in the law deprives it of the benefit of its bargain as enunciated in People v. Collins (1978) 21 Cal.3d 208, or the rule of Doe v. Harris, supra, 57 Cal.4th 64, where later changes in the law can affect a plea agreement applied in Proposition 47 cases. (Harris v. Superior Court, supra, at p. 991.) Critical to that question was the intent behind Proposition 47. The Supreme Court found that although "entering into a plea agreement does not insulate the parties 'from changes in the law that the Legislature has intended to apply to them,' " in Proposition 47 cases, however, "it was not the Legislature, but the electorate, that enacted Proposition 47." (Ibid.) As such, the Supreme Court concluded that the electorate intended the change to apply to the parties to plea agreements in Proposition 47 cases. (Ibid.) The rational articulated in Harris is inapplicable to this case.
III
DISPOSITION
The order denying defendant's motion for early termination of formal probation and dismissal of his conviction is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
CODRINGTON
J. We concur: RAMIREZ
P. J. McKINSTER
J.